Time keeps getting the best of me

I've been busy decorating and working on some holiday crafts, but have not gotten so much done. Still waiting for my Christmas tree. Shawn had to work yesterday and wasn't able to go with me to get a tree and today my car is at the shop. Yeah, $800 worth of car repairs right before Christmas...fun, right? Oh well, what can you do? I need that car for work and for Christmas tree retrieval! Hopefully we will get the tree this evening after picking up my car. I'm going to need something to cheer me up after I hand over my credit card to the auto repair man.

I'm hoping to post holiday decor pictures soon and some December Daily pages. Still trying to catch up....This weekend I had grand plans for knocking things off my list, like December daily catch up, decorating, cards and gifts. I have clearly not gotten as much done as I would have like. Hoping this afternoon proves more productive.

Here are a couple pages I made using the December Scrap for a Cure kit. This is a great kit, jammed packed full of holiday and winter themed goodies. Such fun papers and embellies. I'm hoping to find time to make more with this kit later this week.




I also never shared this little page I made using the Studio Calico Looking Glass kit a few weeks ago while scrapping at Ally's . It's one of my recent favorites.


I'm off to cross more things off my list....gift making, card writing and my poor neglected December Daily are calling my name. Happy Monday!

Wish List

I thought I'd take some time to document my holiday wish list. I always love a good list, especially a list with links to fun things. Here are a few things I'm wishing for this year.

I'd like a few accessories for my Slice:
The noteworthy cartrdige
Basic Shapes 2
Vinyl Sticker Papers
Brocade Acetate Papers
Jewelry from Lisa Leonard
Ali's Book
This lens
Gift cards to Pottery Barn, Anthropologie, or Studio Calico.
This necklace
Art from here, here or here
A new pair of my favorite PJ's
Kitchen items:
glass food storage containers to replace my plastic, like these, these or these
new spatulas
potato masher
juicer

Holiday Fun

I'm counting down the hours till I'm done with work this afternoon. This weekend (well my weekend Sat night-Monday) is all about holiday fun! After work today, I'm headed home to make some cookies, scrap and hang out at the Scrapgal holiday crop. The crop last night was pretty fun. Lots of ideas and inspiration for holiday decor and gifts. I posted a tutorial for this cute little coffee sleeve mini.



There will be lots more going on tonight too. I'll be posting the tutorial for the book tree and hosting a fun little game where you can win a Scrapgal gift certificate. Check out the crop forum for all the action.

I plan on spending Sunday and Monday decorating the house and having more holiday fun. We'll go get the tree on Sunday and I want to spend the day decorating and baking and maybe more crafting. I haven't had a chance to pull out all my Christmas stuff yet and am dying to get it out and make the house feel Christmasy.

Monday morning I have to take my car in for an oil change and new brakes (great timing, right?) I'm hoping to spend the rest of Monday taking care of some Christmas to do's and enjoying my decorated house.

What's on your weekend agenda?

Slow down

I really need December to slow down. How is it already the 4th? Time is going way to fast this month and my to do list seems to be constantly growing. I thought I had a good handle on gifties this year, but I seem to be falling behind. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. I think this week just got a little crazy, plus an icky stomach and lack of sleep doesn't really help. I'm looking forward to this weekend....holiday crop at scrapgal, scrapping Saturday night, getting the Christmas tree and decorating the house Sunday....I think I'll feel better once some of my to do's are accomplished and the house is all pretty and Christmasy.

This conversation I had with one of my kiddos today, makes me smile:

M-What's your husband's name again?
Me-Shawn
M-So you have a husband but no children?
(I'm talking to a 7 year old, mind you)
Me-Yes. Someday I will have children. Maybe next year...
M-I think maybe tomorrow.
Me-That might be hard to do. How many children should I have?
M-4
Me-4! I don't know about that. Should I have boys or girls?
M-Both. 2 boys and 2 girls.
Me-Ok, what should their names be?
M-Well, the first one should be M (his name) and the second one will be Erin, and than one named Shawn, and the last one should be named (big silly smile) Piano.
Me-Piano? That's kind of a silly name, don't you think?
M-Yeah. I want one to have a silly name.

Hey Good Lookin, whatcha got cookin?

Yesterday I did my grocery shopping for the week and restocked our sad empty fridge. I gave my mom a lot of my produce when we left for Chicago so it wouldn't spoil. I don't think I've ever seen my produce drawer empty before. Anyway, in my effort to stock up and plan the weekly meals, I decided to plan lots of good meals for this week. With the holiday madness starting soon, I know that there will be several take-out nights or nights where we eat really simply. So I decided this week was a good week to cook well and try a new recipe or two. Here's the meal plan for the week:

last night: Meatloaf for Shawn, butternut squash soup for me, baked potatoes
tonight: Steak for Shawn, mushroom risotto and french bread (a new recipe from Jamie Oliver, it was delicious!)
Tuesday: Butternut Squash and walnut pasta, salad
Wednesday: Lemon Chickpea Stir-Fry (a new recipe emailed to me by Tim)
Thursday: Shawn's dinner night (I work late)
Friday: meat for Shawn, fish for me, veggies

What are you cooking this week? Tried any new recipes lately?

Today, after dropping off my billing for work and having lunch with Kellie at The Herb Box, I headed to Restoration Hardware (with a coupon) for stocking stuffers. They have some pretty fun little toys and gadgets that are perfect for adding to adult stockings. I also took advantage of Cyber Monday with a couple online purchases. Cross a few more things off my ever growing December to do list.

I posted a tutorial for this little project on Scrapgal today. Head to the Galblog for instructions on how to make them.




Happy December!

Home Again, Home Again

I'm back from a lovely trip to Chicago for Thanksgiving. Shawn and I spent five days at his mom's house and enjoyed our time with his family. It was a pretty low key trip and I got lots of much needed rest and relaxation. We spent a lot of time hanging out. I watched several movies, knitted 2 and a half Christmas gifts, read a few magazines and spent most of our trip indoors. It was cold for us AZ kids, but really wasn't too bad and the sun was out almost the whole time.

Thanksgiving was nice and mellow. We had a wonderful dinner and I indulged a little too much! Here are some Thanksgiving photos. Ellen in her new cute apron:


Uncle Bruce carving the turkey in his lovely floral apron...he borrowed Ellen's other apron, but I think flowers suit him!


Shawn's Grandma finishing up her famous green jello mold:


The beautiful Thanksgiving table:


On Friday, Ellen took me into the city to be a tourist and to see the Christmas decorations. We didn't really do any shopping, just lots of walking and looking. It was fun to be a tourist and take pictures like this one:


Here's the Chicago Bean in Millineneum Park. I love the reflection of the city.


Some city shots:

Ice skating in the park...how fun would that be?



The Christmas tree in Daley Plaza:

Busy Busy

I've been a busy girl this past week. My to do list is quite long. It includes things like clean the house, work on holiday projects, complete some of my in progress scrappy projects, work on handmade holiday gifts, new clothes, laundry, etc. I always have grand plans for the things I want to do, but don't always find the time to start, keep up, or finish some things.



This little Gratitude Album is one of those things that got lost in the shuffle of my life. I had good intentions with this album. I intended to keep track of things that I'm grateful for each day of November. So I printed out a months' worth of these templates from Cathy Zielske at the beginning of November. You can find the template here. Unfortunately, I didn't actually get around to cutting, matting and binding this little guy until this week. So, my November Gratitude Album will be filed away until after the holidays and will instead become a January Gratitude Album. I figure it's a good way to start of the new year, with a month of documenting things for which I am grateful. It's too bad I used some papers from my stash that are pretty fall looking...oh well, I think it's pretty cute. Here's a view of the insides waiting patiently for my gratitude journaling.


Becuase I still wanted to do something for Thanksgiving. I decided to jump on an idea from this crafty girl and print up templates from Jessica Sprague for a Thankful Album. The plan is to document a week of things I am Thankful for, starting tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have more success with this one!


Speaking of Jessica Sprague, I've been taking her "Stories at Hand" class. Again, I haven't been able to keep up with all the class prompts this week, but I did manage to print, cut and bind all the materials:


I really like the idea behind this class and the little book will become a favorite tool for helping me to document more of the stories in my life. When I have more time, I'm definitely going to dive into the "roots" section and start telling and documenting stories from my childhood.

I've also been busy doing work stuff and creating lots of projects for Scrapgal's Holiday Crop on December 5th and 6th and for the 12 Days of Christmas Contest coming up on December 11th. I will talk more about this soon. I'm so excited about all the projects Scrapgal's design team has been working on. There are great things coming to Scrapgal in December for sure!

Ok, back to the to do list. I need to get the laundry done and start on the house cleaning so that I can go see Twilight tomorrow with my mom and sister. I'm so looking forward to this too.